Countdown to the All Star break: Ten (+1) games to go, one game under .500, 5th place, 3 games out of first, 3 1/2 behind the wild card leader. 2-0 in July.

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If the Astros don’t get to .500 over the next week, they’ll miss perhaps their best chance in 2009.

You can forget a record first half, but your favorite nine is putting together a pretty nifty finish, if not sprint, to the All Star break, especially considering they’re above .500 on the road and two games under at home.

The Astros play a real baseball team — read: record above .500 — for three games this weekend before heading home for the stretch run to the All Star break against two last place teams, Pittsburgh and Washington.

Already sporting an unbeaten record in July (2-0), the Astros have not posted back-to-back winning records in June and July since…well, 2005. That season, they followed a 16-9 June with an even better 22-7 July and that miraculous sprint to the finish.

If the Astros sprint to the Wild Card or division title this season, it will be even more momentous than 2005. There is no Clemens on this team. No Pettitte. And that’s what helped the Astros give up the fewest runs (609) in the National League that year.

Ortiz and Hampton will be the key. If they stay healthy and effective, this storybook year could have a Hollywood ending. No, not predicting a World Series, just an interesting team to watch in September and into October.

Ten games plus one (remember, the completion of the Washington game) can help put the Astros in position. Then, much may depend on what magic — if any — Ed Wade can bring to the table.

Getting in “position”, however, may give the Astros an opportunity to catch their breath and reload for a second half that begins with a brutal schedule: four games on the road at LA, then a short homestand again St. Louis and New York before heading back on the road against Chicago and St. Louis.

If that doesn’t take the wind out of your first-half-ending sails…

In a poll last week, most of you said the Astros would finish around .500 at the break. Now, with a 38-39 record, it’s conceivable they could take the half-point checkered flag with 45-46 wins.

That may not get you into first place, but it could certainly merit a mention on ESPN. Or not.

• It’s not likely the Astros will have anyone voted into the All Star Game, so which player is most likely to be chosen as a reserve? My prediction: Pence.

• Whether you believe the Astros are buyers or sellers, it’s possible the team will try to improve its position. They’ve already picked up 3B German Duran off waivers. What type of move — if any — do you see the Astros making before the start of the second half in two weeks? My prediction: Nothing significant.

• Former Astros’ farmhand Drew Sutton was called up to the Reds this week. He went 0-for-1 with an RBI on Thursday. What type of contributor do you think he will be for the Reds? My prediction: Decent bench presence, but nothing spectacular.

I was listening to MLB Network tonight talk about how the Red Sox have used Wakefield in every possible pitching situation this year.

Can you possibly imagine the Astros throwing their best pitcher in every sitution which is needed to WIN games? One of the seriously tiresome things about the history of our team is the extreme conservatism at every turn.

I’m sick to death of seeing blown saves when you have 7th & 8th inning pitchers breezing thru their innings. The last blockbuster trade we obviously got the best of? The last time we attempted a squeeze play? The last time our manager argued with passion? SOMEBODY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLAY THIS GAME LIKE PETE ROSE AGAIN!

All these numbers and blind predictions about what we’ll go in the next series, blah blah blah.

How ’bout this: if we played hard we’d win them all. Now, get busy with the business end of f i n d i n g a way to win!

Tejada-That is unless they decide to make the National’s SS their only rep (should be Dunn and/or Zimmerman). The players might vote Pence in, but that is also dependent on Soriano not taking over 3rd place in the voting.

I don’t see anyone being picked up. Although, I could see Valverde and/or Ortiz dealt. Like others said, Wigginton seems like a good fit to have back.

Sutton won’t do anything great in the pros. He is a decent bench player, like you said.

And who are you fooling–Houston teams don’t get mentioned on ESPN, except when a star player leaves or there are bees on the field.

LOL wow 3 players for David Eckstein who is one of the more overrated players in the majors…terrible trade for the Astros…the guy does take a lot of pitches with few strike outs and has heart but doesnt actually do much else…He hasnt been that great of a fielder in his career…a .978 fielding percentage for his career at SS, he doesnt hit that well, doesnt run well(27 SB in the past 4 years), and is known to go on cold streaks almost every other week…

I wish you would write an article on this year’s draft. Specifically about Tanner Bushue as he was the second round draft choice . I heard somewhere that Dallas keuchel was signed also. What I am trying to find out was these people signed because they were the best prospects or because they were cheap? Houston always seems to have an excuse for not signing the consensus high picks and always seem to sign somebody no one ever heard of– then they tell us they were the best available. Is the consensus opinion of these unnamed scouts so far wrong?? How does the total amount spent this year on draft choices compare with the other teams? Are they REALLY still committed to building thru the draft or are they going back to the tight pockets regimen?? John Brown

Be careful what you wish for, Bill Holmes. The other thought in you-know-who’s head could just be that we need to be talking to the Padres about trading Darin Erstad, Edwin Maysonet and Tommy Manzella to the Padres for David Eck . . . well . . . uh . . . you know.

So, Chip, out of curiosity, exactly which two game[s] of the San Francisco series do you see us winning?

Game one [Paulino vs. super-rookie Sadowski]?

Game two [Ortiz vs. super-human Linescum]? OR

Game three [2009-version Roy O vs. the Big Unit]?

I’ll take one win in a heatbeat and be happy about it. Odds look pretty good our heroes get swept away by SF with a dry broom. I see game 3 as our most likely shot, but I still give the team only about a 20% chance of pulling off because it is a day game, and Roy is never at his best in the daylight.

Oh, and for my 11-game prediction, 4 wins, 7 losses.

[Mr. Bill, I’m not necessarily picking 2 out of 3 against SF. I expect a great run next week against Pitt and Washington, though. Win at least one against SF and take 6 of 8 next week and you get your 7-4. CB]

I have no idea how the Astros will do over the weekend against the Giants. It does seem, however, that we have already forgotten that the Tigers were on a seven game winning streak until they played our bad team, and everyone was dreading the Twins with their power-hitting shortstop. All teams have bad and good games so let’s see what happens on the field. We are neither as bad or as good as some suggest-most of it comes down to streaks. That’s why the Wild Card teams seem to do so well.

“This is a pipe dream. Seriously, there are WAAAY better teams than us that will pass us, and one of em is the Giants.”

The Giants are *already* ahead of us. They don’t have a lot of hitting but Lincecum/Cain is as good a 1-2 punch as there is in the league. If either Johnson or Zito pull it together (and Johnson has rebounded from a rough start) they will be tough to face in a short series.

Don’t know about Sadowski, who looks Paulino-ish…but I guess we’ll find out today. And I wish we could see an Oswalt/Lincecum matchup, but it appears not to be.

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“Iv’e said this over and over again Chip…”

Andy, it’s all you *ever* say, over and over and over. Do you have anything else to add? Anything?? Otherwise, after 100+ posts, I think we all know where you stand on blind faith by now.

As for as trades, I don’t see the Astros doing anything with their pitching or starting position players unless someone goes on the DL. If one of the pitchers starts to tank, they would probably call up someone from AAA, and the same could be said with regard to the starting position players.

However, if the Astros were to make any moves at all, I would guess it would be to replace the two veteran bench players (Michaels and Erstad) with two new veteran bench players. They obviously couldn’t trade either one of them because they have no value. But I could see the Astros working a couple of low-level PTBNL trades for some other veterans on the back side of their career, and then DFA’ing Michaels and Erstad. Sitting the bench most of the time, and just pinch-hitting here and there is tough for a seasoned veteran, and can ruin a prospect, so I don’t see us calling up anyone to replace them.

Iv’e said this over and over again Chip, but there are still Astros fans who do not believe in this Astros team. There are a lot of fans who thought the Astros were done in May. There are lot of fans that are to prideful to admit they were dead wrong, just like last year. Chip when will we wake up to the fact that the Astros just might be good this year?

Tejada will likely represent Stros in AS game. I’m OK with that. Couple of the younger guys are doing well for the Stros, but Tejada is too.

The possibility of the Stros being at or above .500 by the ASB is good. It means they have played a little better ball in the 1st half of the season than in previous years. What is the prize for doing better in the 1st half ?? Better entertainment for the fans. That has some value to us ticketholders. That said, playing basball in Oct is the objective here. Everyone makes such a big deal of being at .500 by midseason and I do not place that much importance on that. What is important is that they have not, as yet, played themselves out of contention. I look for better things from Hampton and maybe Paulino. Perhaps Matsui, since they are determined to play him over Maysonnet), may hit better as the season progresses.

In any event, I hope the team keeps their eye on the prize with a sence of reality. What coaches or players is it going to take to bring Houston into another WS ? Will that be achieved with any permutation of this current team nucleus? If not, is Astros magmnt capable of doing what it takes to bring a WS as soon as it is reasonably possible? I hope so. If you won’t trade away all of our young talent, I’ll wait.

Chip, if your prediction of 7-4 comes true, the Astros could be in first place at the break. I looked at the schedule for all the teams ahead of us, and it’s not unreasonable to see all of them playing .500 ball between now and the break.

Between now and the break:

Brewers are playing the Cubs (road), St. Louis (home), and Dodgers (home).

St. Louis plays the Reds (road), Brewers (road), and Cubs (road).

Cincinnati plays St. Louis (home), Phillies (road), and Mets (road).

Cubs play the Brewers (home), Braves (home), and St. Louis (home).

If by chance the Astros ARE in first place at the break, they will sure get a chance to show what they’re made of after the break. Out of all the NL Central, the Astros have the toughest post-break July schedule by far.

However, before looking way down the road, let’s just see how they do in San Francisco, and in particular, tonight’s game in San Francisco.

[Yep, Hann, as I pointed out, they get to play a real contender this weekend. It’ll be a good gauge of what’s really there. 7-4 with 8 of those vs. Washington and Pittsburgh is not a huge mountain to climb. CB]

Let’s re-visit the checkered flag possibilities again after the Astros face the Giants’ pitching for 3 games. Both starters and bullpen, the Giants pitchers are light years ahead of the Astros. If the ‘Stros can get out of SF w/ a 1-2 split, they’ll be lucky. 2-1 would be a miracle. If I had to put money on it, I’d bet 3-0, Giants.

Oh, and fire Coop. With a better manager I (and many, many others) would have more faith. I would say replace Coops idiotic decisions w/ a competent managers and we would honestly be at about 44-37 right now. You know this to be true.

This is a pipe dream. Seriously, there are WAAAY better teams than us that will pass us, and one of em is the Giants. They lead the MLB in ERA, and many more important pitching stats. Remember, its pitching and defense that win the season, and Hampton or Wandy or even RoyO (altho I see him being dominant in the 2nd half) are more than likely to regress.

What we should be doing is trading Valverde, signing some July 2nd signees (any word on that btw?) and doing everything possible to sign the 100mph Cuban defector. Its not fair that the Sox and Yanks ALWAYS sign these guys. We need to make a splash! Do it DRAYTON!!!

These Astros are hard to figure. A month ago, their hitting was on fire, but now it is cold as ice. Then again, I just read that they led the NL in hitting in May and June. Seems like they haven’t hit a lick for a month. They have 14 blown saves before the halfway point. They would demolish the record they had in Lidges last year. And yet on the Astros broadcast today the San Diego announcers said Houston had the 6th best pen in the league. But they have to lead the league in blown saves. What i see is, that if they can put it all together, they can be much much better than anybody gave them credit for at the start of the season. Go Stros…. have faith……

I too don’t think the Astros will do anything significant. A Mark Teahen from KC or even bringing Wigginton back though he’s having a bad year would help. Unfortunately, they’re both pipe dreams. Pick ups like Duran is an indication the Astros will not pick up any additional salary at the trade deadline. We’ll have to settle for scraps and hope we get lucky.

It would have been nice if the pick up had been Drew Sutton. His BA was 256 but his OBA was 381 and the Reds just called him up. Apparently, the Astros thought he was only capable of playing second. We’ll see if we end up regretting that trade.

was released yesterday. What happened? We didn’t hear much about him, other than the Astros picked him off the Rangers, after they placed him on waivers. What’s up with this? Oh yeah, I still have the purple hair dye, I saved it from the garbage man last month!! HA! HA! HA!….oops!

Becky:)

[Becky, he had a clause in his contract that allowed him to choose free agency if he wasn’t with the big club. I mentioned the move in yesterday’s comments. I wish we could have kept him, but honestly, who would he have replaced in Houston’s pen? CB]